Front matter (continued 18)

A short time ago I saw an admirable letter of Lord Clarendon's, who is now Lord Lieutenant; but though he has hitherto conducted his most difficult government with great ability, there is so much real evil in the condition of the Irish that, combined with their folly, their ignorance, and the wickedness of their instigators, I do not think it possible that the summer will pass over without that wretched country again becoming the theatre of anarchy and turbulent resistance to authority.

My brother-in-law has returned from Rome, and my sister will follow him as soon as the weather will admit of her crossing the Alps with her babies. All his property is in the French funds, that seems an insecure security nowadays....

In England we shall have an extended right of suffrage, a smaller army, a cheaper government, reduced taxation, and some modification of the land tenure,—change, but no revolution, and no fits, I think. This people deserve freedom, for they alone, and you, descended from them, have shown that they know what it means. Considerable changes we shall have, but the wisdom and wealth of our middle classes is a feature in our social existence without European parallel; it is the salvation of the country. I know you hate crossed writing, so good-bye. I am afraid these fantastic French fools will bring Republicanism into contempt. France seems to be threatened with national bankruptcy, et puis—alors—vous verrez.

Always affectionately yours,

F. A. B.

Colchester.

I came from Yarmouth to-day, having lodged there in a strange old inn that belonged, in our Republican days, to Judge Bradshaw; in one room of which, they say, Cromwell signed Charles I.'s death-warrant; but this, I think, is a mistake. He is said, however to have lived much in the house, which, at that time, belonged to the Bradshaw family. The house is of a much earlier date, though, than that, and was once, undoubtedly, a royal residence; for in a fine old oak room, the carved panelling of which was as black as ebony, the ceiling was all wrought with the roses and the fleur-de-lys. The kitchen and bar-room were both made out of an old banqueting-hall, immensely lofty, and with a very fine carved ceiling, and stone-mullioned windows, of capital style and preservation. The staircase was one of those precious, broad, easy-graded ascents, up which you could almost take a carriage, with a fine heavy oak baluster; and on the upper floor three good-sized rooms made out of one, with another elaborately carved ceiling. It was really a most curious and picturesque place, and is now the "Star Inn" at Yarmouth, and will doubtless become gradually changed and modernized and pulled to pieces, till both its remaining fine old characteristics and its traditions are lost—as, in good measure, they already are, for, as I said before, the house bears traces of having been a royal residence long before Cromwell's time....

The older English country-houses are full of quaint and picturesque relics of former times; but I think there is a cruel indifference sometimes to their preservation; e.g., think of the Norwich people allowing the house of Sir Thomas Browne to be dismantled of all its wood-carving, which was sent up to London and sold in morsels, I suppose, to the Jews in Wardour Street.

Yours affectionately,

Fanny.

Portsmouth, Friday, March 31st, 1848.

I did not walk on my arrival in Portsmouth, dear Hal, but dined. The day was very beautiful all along, and I enjoyed as much of it as my assiduous study of the Times newspaper would allow.

JOHN MITCHELL. I am glad you saw Mitchell, because now you can conceive what a funny colloquy that was of mine with him, about the price of the seats at my readings. [Mr. Mitchell, court bookseller, queen's publisher, box-letter to the nobility, general undertaker of pleasures and amusements for the fashionable great world of London, was my manager and paymaster throughout all my public reading career in England.] In making the preliminary arrangements for them he had, in my opinion, put the prices too high, demanding ten shillings for them. When I said they were not worth two, and certainly ought not to be charged more than five, he replied, with much feeling for the British aristocracy, whom he idolized, and whom he thought fit on this occasion to designate, collectively, under the title of my friend Lord Lansdowne, that he couldn't think of insulting him by making him pay only five shillings to hear me read. I wonder why poor dear Lord Lansdowne can't be asked five shillings? I would have charged him, and all the smaller and greater nobility of the realm, half a crown, and been rather ashamed of the pennyworth they got for it. But a thing is worth what it will fetch, and no one knows that better than Mr. Mitchell. I should think any sensible being would prefer paying half a crown to the honor and glory of disbursing twice that sum for a two-hours' reading—even by me, even of Shakespeare. I wish, while you were in personal connection with my manager Mitchell, you had remonstrated with him about those ridiculous dandified advertisements. You might have expressed my dislike of such fopperies, and perhaps saved me a few shillings in pink and blue and yellow note-paper; though it really almost seems a pity to interfere with the elegancies of poor Mitchell, who is nothing if not elegant. However, I wish he would not be so at my expense, who have no particle of that exquisite quality in my whole composition, and find the grovelling one of avarice growing daily upon me.

I have already had a letter from Henry Greville this morning, telling me the result of two interviews he has had with Mitchell about the readings; also—which interests me far more than my own interests—of the utter routing of the Austrians in the Milanese—hurrah!—also of his determination to buy the house in Eaton Place.... Adelaide must come home by sea, for it is impossible that she should travel either through France or Germany without incurring the risk of much annoyance, if nothing worse. The S—— in the dragoon regiment in Dublin is E——'s younger brother....

Ever yours,

Fanny.

Bannisters, Tuesday, 14th, 1848.

Liston's [the eminent surgeon] death shocked me very much, and I felt very certain that he was himself aware of his own condition. I observed, during my intercourse with him latterly, a listless melancholy in his manner, a circumstance that puzzled me a good deal in contrast with his powerful frame, and vigorous appearance, and blunt, offhand manner. I think I understand now, and can compassionate certain expressions in his last note to me, which, when I received it, made a painful and unfavorable impression upon me. I suppose he did not believe in a future state of existence, and have no doubt that, latterly, he had a distinct anticipation of his own impending annihilation. His great strength and magnificent physical structure, of course, suggested no such apprehension to persons who knew nothing of his malady [Liston died of aneurism in the throat], but when I saw him last he told me he was much more ill than I was; that he had been spitting up a quantity of blood, and was "all wrong." ...

WILHELM MEISTER. I cannot take your thanks, my dear Hal, about "Wilhelm Meister." ... I never offer anything to any one; neither would I willingly, when asked for it, withhold anything from any one. I believe the only difference that I really make between my "friends" and my "fellow-creatures" is one of pure sentiment: I love the former, and am completely indifferent to the latter, but I would do as much for the latter as for the former.

My marks in "Wilhelm Meister" will not, as you expect, "explain themselves," for the passages that I admire for their artistic literary beauty, their keen worldly wisdom, their profound insight, and noble truth, as well as those which charm me only by their brilliant execution, and those which command my whole, my entire feeling of sympathy, are all alike indicated by the one straight line down the side of the text. I think, however, you will distinguish what I agree with from what I only admire. It is a wonderful book, and its most striking characteristic to me is its absolute moral, dispassionate impartiality. Outward loveliness of the material universe, inward ugliness of human nature in its various distortions; the wisdom and the foolishness of man's aims, and the modes of pursuing them; the passions of the senses, the affections of the heart, the aspirations of the soul; the fine metaphysical experiences of the transcendental religionists; the semi-sensual, outward piety of the half-idolatrous Roman Catholic; the great and the little, the shallow and the deep of humanity in this its stage of action and development,—are delineated with the most perfect apparent indifference of sentiment, combined with the most perfect accuracy of observation. He pleads no cause of man or thing, and the absence of all indication of human sympathy is very painful to me in his book. It is only because God is represented as a Being of perfect love that we can endure the idea of Him as also a Being of perfect knowledge. Goethe, as I believe I have told you, always reminds me of Ariel, a creature whose nature—superhuman through power and knowledge of various kinds—is under-human in other respects (love and the capacity of sympathy), and was therefore subject to the nobler moral nature of Prospero. Activity seems to be the only principle which Goethe advocates, activity and earnestness—especially in self-culture,—and in this last quality, which he sublimely advocates, I find the only comfortable element in his wonderful writings. He is inhuman, not superhuman.

God bless you. Good-bye.

Ever yours,

Fanny.

King Street, St. James, Friday, 17th.

My dearest Hal,

I cannot be making arrangements for going over to Dublin so far ahead as the 22d of May, for by that time Dublin may have been swallowed up by Young Ireland.

Your theory of my reading elegant extracts from Shakespeare is very pretty, but absolutely nothing to the purpose for my purpose.... All that is merely especially beautiful is sedulously cut out in my reading version, in order to preserve the skeleton of the story; because the audiences that I shall address are not familiar with the plays, and what they want is as much as possible of the excitement of a dramatic entertainment to be obtained without entering the doors of a theatre....

You forget to what a number of people Lambs and Bullocks give their names; Hog, which, by the bye, is spelt Hogge, has by no means the pre-eminence in that honor.

I saw Lady Lansdowne the other day, who said the ministers were extremely anxious about Ireland, and that the demonstrations with regard to St. Patrick's day kept them in a state of great alarm. Lord Lansdowne is tolerably well just now, but has been quite ill; and Lord John Russell is so ill and worn out that they say he will be obliged to resign: in which case I suppose Lord Lansdowne would be premier. The position of people at the head of governments in this year of grace is certainly not enviable. D'Israeli said, last night, he couldn't see why Dublin should not be burnt to the ground; that he could understand the use of London, or even of Paris, but that the use of Dublin was a mystery. I suggested its being the spring and source and fountain-head of Guinness's stout, but I don't think he considered even that a sufficient raison d'être for your troublesome capital, or porter an equivalent for the ten righteous men who might save a city.

COMICAL LETTER TO THACKERAY. Thackeray tells a comical story of having received a letter from his father-in-law in Paris, urging him by all means to send over his daughter there, and indeed go over himself, for that the frightful riots in England, especially those in London, Trafalgar Square, Kennington, etc., must of course make it a most undesirable residence; and that they would find Paris a much safer and quieter one: which reminds me of the equally earnest entreaties of my dear American friends that I should hasten to remove my poor pennies from the perilous guardianship of the Bank of England and convert them with all despatch to the safe-keeping of American securities!

I have been going out a good deal during the last three weeks, and mean to continue to do so while I am in London, partly because, as I am about to go away, I wish to see as much as I can of its pleasant and remarkable society, and partly, too, from a motive of policy, though I hate it almost as much as Sir Andrew Aguecheek did. I mean to read in London before I leave it, and a great many of my fine lady and gentlemen acquaintances will come and hear me, provided I don't give them time to forget my existence, but keep them well in mind of it by duly presenting myself amongst them. "Out of sight, out of mind," is necessarily the motto of all societies, and considerations of interest more than pleasure often induce our artists and literary men to produce themselves in the world lest they should be forgotten by it. Nor, indeed, is this merely the calculation of those who expect any profit from society; the very pleasure-hunters themselves find that they must not get thrown out, or withdraw for a moment, or disappear below the surface for an instant, for if they do the mad tide goes over them, and they are neither asked for, nor looked for, called for, nor thought of, "Qui quitte sa place la perd," and there is nothing so easy as to be forgotten....

Besides all this, now that my departure from England approaches, I feel as if I had enjoyed and profited too little by the intercourse of all the clever people I live among, and whose conversation you know I take considerable pleasure in. I begin now, in listening, as I did last night, to D'Israeli and Milnes and Carlyle, and E——'s artist friend, Mr. Swinton, to remember that these are bright lights in one of the brightest intellectual centres in Europe, and that I am within their sphere but for a time....

I called at the Milmans' yesterday, and found Mrs. Austin there, whom I listened to, almost without drawing breath, for an hour. She has just returned from Paris, where she lived with all the leading political people of the day, and she says she feels as if she had been looking at a battle-field strewn with her acquaintances. Her account of all that is going on is most interesting, knowing as she does all the principal actors and sufferers in these events, personally and intimately.

To-day the report is that the Bank of France has suspended payment. The ruin of the Rothschilds is not true, though they are great losers by these catastrophes. The Provisional Government has very wisely and wittily devised, as a means of raising money, to lay a tax of six hundred francs a year upon everybody who keeps more than one servant! Can folly go beyond that?

Henry Greville showed me yesterday a letter he had received from Paris from Count Pahlen, saying that, though the guillotine was not yet erected, the reign of terror had virtually commenced; for that the pusillanimous dread that kept the whole nation in awe of a handful of pickpockets could be described as nothing else.

I am much concerned about E——'s fortune, the whole of which is, I believe, lodged in French funds. All property there must be in terrible jeopardy, I fear.

Lady G—— F—— went to Claremont two days ago, and says that Louis Philippe's deportment is that of a servant out of place. She did not add, "Pas de bonne maison." ...

Ever yours,

Fanny.

SPECIAL CONSTABLES' DAY IN 1848. [On the famous 10th of April, the day of the great Chartist meeting, I drove from King Street to Westminster Bridge in the morning, before the monster demonstration took place; and though the shops were shut and the streets deserted, everything was perfectly quiet and orderly, and nothing that appeared indicated the political disturbance with which the city was threatened—the dread of which induced people, as far as the Regent's Park from the Houses of Parliament, to pack up their valuables and plate, etc., and prepare for instant flight from London. In the evening, my friends would hardly believe my peaceful progress down Whitehall, and I heard two striking incidents, among the day's smaller occurrences: that Prince Louis Napoleon had enrolled himself among the special constables for the preservation of peace and order; and that M. Guizot, standing where men of every grade, from dandies to draymen, were flocking to accept the same service of public preservation, kept exclaiming, with tears in his eyes, "Oh, le brave peuple! le brave peuple!"—a contrast certainly to his Parisian barricaders.

In the summer of 1848 I returned to America, where my great good fortune in the success of my public readings soon enabled me to realize my long-cherished hope of purchasing a small cottage and a few acres of land in the beautiful and beloved neighborhood of Lenox.]

THE END.

Slips for Librarians to paste on Catalogue Cards.

N. B.—Take out carefully, leaving about quarter of an inch at the back. To do otherwise would, in some cases, release other leaves.

KEMBLE, FRANCES ANN. Records of Later Life. By Frances Ann Kemble. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1882. Large 12mo, pp. 676.

RECORDS OF LATER LIFE. By Frances Ann Kemble. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1882, Large 12mo, pp. 676.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY. Records of Later Life. By Frances Ann Kemble. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1882. Large 12mo, pp. 676.